


why'd you only call me when you're high?

by cassthecryptid



Category: Smosh
Genre: Drug Refrences, Mentions of Sex, Multi, a lil angsty, late night write, this basically has nothing to do with the song but it's got some good vibes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-12
Updated: 2019-01-12
Packaged: 2019-10-08 17:56:49
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,267
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17390987
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cassthecryptid/pseuds/cassthecryptid
Summary: now it's three in the morning, and I'm trying to change your mind, left you multiple missed calls, and to my message you reply, "why'd you only call me when you're high?"based (loosely) on the song 'why'd you only call me when you're high?' by arctic monkeys because it's been stuck in my head for DAYS.





	why'd you only call me when you're high?

The smoke fills the air as he hits the joint again.

They're dancing now, like the drunken fools they are. He can't help but smile at them as they spin, their fingers entangled in the darkness of the desert. 

Damien is sitting in the bed of his dad's truck. Boze and Courtney are dancing on top of the roof as he stares up at the night sky. He's not sure if there's music, but he thinks he hears it far off in the distance. Maybe it's the call of coyotes, or the rattling of a snake underfoot, but it definitely sounds like music. 

"Damien," Boze grins down at him from where she's entwined with Courtney. "Come dance."

They hold out their hands to him, dragging him up on top of the truck. It's a tight squeeze, but they all fit perfectly. Boze snakes her arm around his waist, and Courtney grabs his hand. She leans forward, snatching the joint from his mouth with her teeth. Courtney smokes it with her free hand. She leans back, falling over the side, only being held up by Boze and Damien's fingertips on the small of her back. Smoke blossoms out of her mouth, and she sucks in the cold air through her teeth. 

"God," she murmurs. "That shit smarts."

Courtney hands it to Boze, who does the same. Still holding one another, they sink to their feet, sitting in a circle on the top of the car. Boze breathes the smoke into his face, and Damien draws it in, letting it burn his lungs.

"Mmm," Boze groans. She pulls Courtney closer to her body, her fingertips still weaved within Damien's. "It's cold." Boze barely moves her head as she buries it in Courtney's chest. "You still got those sleeping bags in that compartment, Haas?"

"Yep."

"Good," Boze pulls away from Courtney. She slides down the back, landing in the truck bed with a thump. Boze takes another puff off of the joint before pushing it into Damien mouth and jumping out of the truck. Courtney grabs for Damien's waist, pulling him against her so that their bodies fit together. In the cold Californian night winds, Damien doesn't mind the closeness. Courtney's face looks ghostly underneath the moonlight, her hair wild and free as she smiles with giddy, chemical-drunk content. 

"You're pretty," she sighs. Her fingers trace the curve of his jaw down to his chin and up to his lips. She rubs a finger against his lower lip, mumbling to herself. "I'm glad Boze and I car-jacked you for tonight."

"Yeah," Damien exhales. "I think I'm glad too, but my parents are going to _kill_ me tomorrow."

"Fuck them," Courtney whispers, her eyes transfixed on his lips. "Live a little."

There's a loud clang as Boze jumps back into the back of the truck holding two sleeping bags. Courtney lets out a laughing scream as she pushes herself away from Damien and slides off the top of the car and into the back with Boze. Damien sits back on his hands as he watches the two unzip the sleeping bags and connect them together. 

He draws in a breath as a memory comes back to him, exhaling smoke out of the corners of his mouth. The joint was almost gone now, mostly paper smoke more than anything. He stubbes it out on the top of the car, flicking it out into the desert to be covered by the shifting sands and never seen again.

Damien slides off of the top of the truck, catching himself on the tire and pulling open the door to the passenger side. He pulls himself in, the warmth of the interior a welcome break from the chill outside. Damien pops open his glove box, pulling out the joint Boze had rolled on the way there. He pulls Courtney's lighter from his back pocket, lighting it up slowly in the cave of his hands. 

There were a few sounds from the back of the truck, soft giggles and some noises that made Damien grumble, rolling his eyes. He reaches forward, turning the keys to the first notch so that the heat and radio would turn on. If they wanted to fuck in the back of his truck, then they were going to be cold while he was nice and warm inside.

The radio was something local, a station just clear enough to know that you were still just outside of the city, but with that grainy quality that suggested otherwise. The beat is low and slow, and the singer sounds like they smoke four packs a day, but Damien thinks it's the best thing he's ever heard.

He remembers back to when it wasn't him and Courtney and Boze out here in the desert. When it was him and a more familiar face in the back of the truck, tangled together in those sleeping bags, smoking and watching the stars. 

They always watched the stars, no matter what day they came out. It was always the stars. He pulls out his phone, holding it loosely in his hands as his mind is elsewhere. 

He's thinking about all of the things he's done in the back of the truck. The things he's said, the things he's thought. The people he's kissed.

Damien's kissed three people in his life and two of them were currently in the back of his truck.

He kissed Courtney a few weeks ago when she had knocked on his window at midnight with promise of ice cream and onion rings at the local diner in exchange for someone to listen to her ramble while she was coming down from a high. They'd sat outside in his truck, sharing onions rings and a milkshake as she sobered up. She'd kissed him as she was leaving. It was soft, more of a peck than something deeper. It had felt like a reminder, more than anything else, that she was there for him as much as he was for her.

He kissed Boze just before sunset, dropping her off after they'd gotten high in the greenhouse behind the school. When Boze first dragged him along to the greenhouse, holding firmly onto his shirt-sleeve, she'd been crying. They'd sat knee to knee, passing a joint between them until the air filled with smoke so thick that it burned his eyes. He'd pressed a knee against hers as she exhaled the smoke through her nose. 

"You wanna talk?"

"No," she whispered. "I wanna forget."

Together they'd stumbled out into the fading light, giggling as they tumbled into Damien's truck. She'd kissed him through the window of his car as he dropped her off at her apartment. Her kiss hadn't meant much either, but it was a thank you more than anything. A thank you for helping her numb the pain, as it was sometimes easier to do than to let it all spill out.

Those kisses didn't hold the same weight as the third did.

The third was a memory he wished was more distant. A hand that he had held so tenderly, but was now a stranger to him. The lips of the first person he'd ever brought out into the desert are ingrained so clearly into his mind. Soft and warm, and parting just slightly before they pressed to his own. 

It had been a night like this one when they'd first met; cold and windy, the sky empty of clouds and full of stars.

Damien had always had that itch for rebellion that most people his age felt, but that night it had been stronger than it had ever was before.

He'd always been impulsive, so when he'd heard that there was some guy selling weed for cheap, he brought in cash the next day. When no one was looking, he slipped the school's druggie 40 bucks in exchange for a ziploc bag of whatever was freshest. He'd kept the bag rolled up in the pocket of a pair of pajama pants under his bed, hoping to god that his mother would never clean his room and find it.

Damien hadn't known where to go at first. He'd never smoked anything before, let alone smoke weed. Damien weighed his options and decided to knock on the front door of the only other person he'd seen buying drugs from the school's dealer.

All he'd had to give the sleepy eyed boy was a promise of weed and he was out the door before Damien could even say anything else. They'd driven out to the desert in silence, the ziploc bag burning a hole in Damien's pocket as he gripped the wheel with sweating palms. 

They'd stopped in a clearing, the moon clear above their heads. The boy, whose name Damien still didn't know yet, pulled out paper tabs and a lighter. Damien watched as he parsed in some of the greenery from the bag, rolling it up into a neat little package before lighting the end until the smoke turned white.

"You ever smoke one of these before?" It was the first words he'd ever said to Damien. Damien had shaken his head in response, which made him smile. "Ahh, a newbie looking to learn." The boy drew in some smoke, holding it for a second before blowing it out from where his two front teeth met his lips. "See?" He handed the joint to Damien, who did the same before choking on it, the wisps of smoke coming out of his mouth in retching coughs that made the boy laugh. "You'll get used to it."

The boy lit up another, and the two smoked in silence for a while, letting it fill the car until their eyes and throats burned. He reached forward, turning on the radio to find a station he liked. When he was satisfied, he pumped up the bass until Damien couldn't hear himself think.

When the light of the morning dribbled across the horizon, Damien dropped the boy off in front of his house. He asked for Damien's phone, and when he returned it, Damien was surprised to see his name and number in the contacts.  _Shayne_ , and in parenthesis, ( _that guy from the desert_ ). 

The second time they go out to the desert, they knew each other a bit better. They didn't talk during school, their lives were too different and too seperate to suddenly become friends, but it wasn't weird for Shayne to call Damien in the dead of night. Shayne liked to listen. Damien realized that early on. He'd let Damien ramble about something stupid if it meant that he could listen to him talk for just a little longer. They were both insomniacs, that was clear, Shayne claimed that smoking helped him a little, easing his mind and letting him concentrate, but most of the time it was an escape.

They sat out under the stars on the back of the truck bed. Shayne pulled himself close to Damien, and he told himself that it was only to keep warm, and no other reason. The wind was bad that night, but Shayne was warm and Damien was high. He woke up the next morning with numb fingertips and his head on Shayne's chest, their arms entangled in one another. Damien moved away before Shayne could wake up, his face red as he pretended his heart wasn't beating out of his chest. 

When they drove out to the desert for the third time, Damien brought sleeping bags and blankets, piling them in the crevasses behind his seat. He and Shayne climbed into the back of his truck bed and watched the stars, smoking as the radio blasted from the open windows. They were so far away from the city that Damien knew if he screamed, no one would hear him. He and Shayne talked more this time. 

Damien liked listening to Shayne ramble, the way his voice rasped against his throat, the light of the stars and the moon above them illuminating the curve of his jaw as he smiled up at the trails of grey-black clouds in the sky.

"Why did you start smoking?" Damien finds himself asking the question out of the blue.

"Mmm, for fun." Shayne sighed, "honestly I don't even know." He looked up at Damien. "You?"

"Teenage rebellion."

"Ah," he grinned. "For you, that makes perfect sense." Shayne drew in a breath, exhaling as he accenting his next words. "So pretty and smart. You're the perfect little package for the cute straight-A student turned delinquent by the school's pothead."

"You're not a pothead."  

"I am," Shayne's smile was dull. "I've accepted my branding." They sat in silence listening to the wind and the far off sounds of the highway. Shayne tied their sleeping bags together, pulling it over the both of them as they leaned back in the truck, watching the stars. Even with the extra blankets, Damien was still cold, and found himself leaning against Shayne again.

"Tired?"

"Yeah," Damien sighed. "Long week."

"Ah."

"Oh, do you, um, mind if I-"

"No, no," Shayne patted his shoulder. "Take a nap. I don't care, I'll be up watching the stars if you wanna talk."

"Okay," Damien smiled. He told himself that he wasn't going to fall asleep that night, but he awoke the next morning with his head against Shayne's shoulder.

The fourth time in the desert was different. There was something in Shayne's voice that felt different. It was hushed, soft and deep as they pulled into the shitty little gas station out of town. He paid for Damien's gas and with a little extra cash, Shayne bought them a bright blue slushie and three bags of chips. They switched off turns on the slushie, and ate all three bags of chips in less than twenty minutes.

Damien leaned against the hood of the car, brushing crumbs off of his shirt as Shayne returned from throwing away their trash. 

"What did you mean that time," Damien pushed his hands into his pockets. Shayne was standing a foot or so away from him. "When you said that I was pretty and smart?"

"You remembered that?"

"It's been on my mind."

"Well, I meant it. You're pretty and smart."

"I'm not."

"You are," Shayne grinned, all teeth, "you're fucking gorgeous."

"You're already high if you think that."

"I promise you I'm completely sober."

"I'm..." Shayne's face looked almost more jarring in the neon gas station lights. "I'm not gay," Damien felt himself go red. Shayne moved to bridge the gap between them, standing so close that Damien could feel the heat behind his eyes.

"You're not?" Shayne responded in a whisper. Damien could feel Shayne's hand press down on the car behind him as he leaned back against it. "Are you sure?"

"Yes," Damien spoke the words softly against Shayne's lips. 

"Yes?"

"No."

"Mmm."

He stood there his eyes on a moving track between Damien's eyes and his lips.

"Are you..." Damien's heart was racing. "Are you just going to stand there, or-"

Shayne kissed him like the world was ending, a hand in his hair and one around his waist, moving as if there wasn't enough Damien to touch.

They drove out to the desert that night, but they didn't smoke.

It was around four am when they finally pulled up in front of Shayne's house. Damien's hair was a mess, and his glasses had gone missing, tossed about somewhere in the car. Shayne kissed him firmly one last time, his hand cupping Damien's jaw in that way that made him melt.

That kiss was the last they'd ever share. It was the last word they'd ever have.

The radio brings him back to the present. Damien takes another drag on the joint, laughing at the ironic lyrics that the singer was crooning to him. He turns on his phone, opening his call history.

Damien had called Shayne so many times after that night, but he'd never gotten a response back.

He remembered knocking on Shayne's door after he'd finally gotten fed up with never getting an answer. His mom had come to the door, telling Damien with no explanation that Shayne didn't live in the house anymore. He'd left Shayne another voicemail after that, begging him to call back, to explain what was happening. Damien had never heard anything in return.

It wouldn't be until several months later that he heard what really happened. 

Shayne's dad had found out about the drugs and the secret boy that he went to the desert with. There'd been a fight, and then the next morning the family's car was gone. Shayne had run away, the rumor said, that he'd made it as far as Sacramento before the cops got to him. He'd been caught and then shipped off to some military academy.

Courtney had been the one to tell him that the first time they'd met. Her parents were friends with Shayne's, and she'd known all about before anyone else after overhearing a hushed conversation between Shayne's mom and hers.

Damien still has Shayne's number memorized. He doesn't know how, but he does. In the fog of smoke and sleep deprivation, Damien dials the number one digit at a time. It rings four times before being sent to voicemail. He listens to the automated call box prompting, waiting for the tone.

"Hi Shayne. It's me. Again." Damien leans his head back. The sounds of Courtney and Boze outside have gone quiet, and he reaches forward to turn the music down. "It's late, I know, and you're probably never going to hear this, but I thought, why the hell not. I'm in the desert right now. Thinking about you. I know it's been almost a year, and it's stupid, but maybe there's a part of me that still wants closure." He rubbed his temples with his fingers. "It's like three am right now. I remember the last time I saw three am with you. God, that feels so long ago now." Damien feels himself pause, as if Shayne might clear his throat through the silence and say something back. "You made me realize some big things about myself, some shit that I was afraid to face, and I want to thank you for that. But part of me also wants to make you hurt the way you hurt me. People just don't _leave_ without goodbyes normally, right? You could've at least called me to say you were running. Did I not mean anything to you?"

Damien didn't realize he was crying until the tears burnt his eyes worse than the smoke. He wipes them away with the back of his hand, drawing in a shaky breath. "Anyway. I hope you're doing well. I hope you don't forget me." He felt a laugh bubble up from somewhere deep inside him. "Maybe in five years I'll come out to the desert and find you here. Sitting on the front of your truck with a joint and a slushie." Damien let out a breathy sigh. "God, that'd be something. Good luck with whatever you're doing." He lets himself pause again. "Goodbye Shayne." 

He pulls the phone away from his ear, letting a loose tear drip down his chin. Something in him felt like it had shifted, and Damien pulls out a blanket Boze had missed from under his seat. He lay it out over himself, stabbing out his joint as he turns off the internal lights in his car.

Damien turns up the radio again, letting the bass drown out his thoughts the way it had so long ago.

 

**Author's Note:**

> took a little break from CDP to write this! i've had this song stuck in my head for a little while, so why not write some shaymien angst and coze fluff about it?


End file.
